The Nerja Council has initiated a process to create a joint enterprise to manage the municipal drinking water supply.
The joint venture, with 50% being financed by the Council and 50% by a private company, will be responsible for managing the water supply, collecting water rates and the purification of the local drinking water supply. At present, the Council controls the water supply and the company Aqualia collects the money.
The new company will be imaginatively called Aguas de Nerja S.A. and the cost to the Council will be €3.6 million. The chairman of the new company will be the mayor and the 12 board members will be six from the Council and six from the company chosen as a partner in the venture.
The idea for the joint venture company has been around for a couple of years now and it will still be quite a while before it is all finalised. The project still has to be approved in plenary session, a relative formality with an absolute majority, but the hope is to at least have the preliminary paperwork done by the end of this year.
The local opposition parties, PSOE and IU, both abstained from the project vote, expressing ‘suspicion’ that the scheme may contain ‘irregularities’. They are going to study the documentation in more detail.
…..If the current system works, why ‘waste’ 3.6 million on setting up a new company to perform exactly the same task?